U.S. telecom carrier AT&T has picked Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent to build its new LTE high-speed wireless network, consolidating their leading position in the U.S. market.

The companies did not give the value of the deal, but telecoms consultancy Aircom has estimated building the Long Term Evolution (LTE) network could cost $1.78 billion during the first 12 months in the U.S. for an operator like AT&T.

Equipment vendors are battling for the first major orders for LTE networks, which will make it easier for them to win subsequent deals.

LTE technology, or 4G, offers cheaper operating costs and enables fast uploads and downloads of movies, music and other data to mobile devices.

Ericsson, having won several deals, is considered to be the leading player in LTE technology, but Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Motorola and Nokia Siemens have also won large LTE orders.

Shares in Ericsson were flat, while Alcatel shares were 1.4 percent higher.

Loss-making Alcatel-Lucent has long been a smaller player in mobile, behind Ericsson, Nokia-Siemens Networks, and Huawei.

Its market share has been slipping, and some analysts have questioned whether the wireless business is structurally loss-making and should be sold off.

Alcatel Chief Executive Ben Verwaayen is betting that Alcatel-Lucent can turn around its flagging mobile fortunes with LTE, and has long ruled out exiting wireless.

"LTE is very important to us, and our CEO has made that very clear in the past 16 months," said Alcatel-Lucent executive Kenneth Frank. "It will be a critical measure of the company's success."

AT&T's rival Verizon is using the same vendors to roll out its network later this year, while AT&T's LTE network is scheduled to start operations in 2011.

AT&T has said it is waiting longer than Verizon to upgrade its network to LTE because it wants enough high-speed LTE devices to be available when it launches.

It has also said that it could get more speed upgrades out of its existing network than Verizon would from its network, as they currently use different technologies.

AT&T is already bumping up its network spending this year as it looks to overcome strains caused by high data usage, particularly from iPhone customers.